Cyber pirates terrorise the high seas

Abstract

Pirates' interest in cyber tools is in part because of the interconnectedness of shipping with the global internet. Today, the world's 51,000 vessels that carry around 90 per cent of the world's freight are equipped with modern technologies such as industry 4.0, which are vulnerable to a range of hacking incidents. These incidents include the ghosting of GPS systems, taking over of command-and-control systems, disruption attacks, ransomware and even cyber commercial intelligence gathering.